LABERIUS, DECIMUS (105-43 p.c.), a Roman knight and a prolific writer of mimi, or farces, was born about 105 B.C. Of his life we know little ; but from the scattered notices of him in the old writers we can gather that he was a man of caustic wit, who wrote his pieces for his own pleasure, and enjoyed some consideration among his contemporaries. In 45 B.C. Julius Caesar, promising him 500,000 sesterces, ordered him to appear in one of his own mimi in a public contest with the actor Publius or Publilius Syrus. Laberius pronounced a dignified prologue on the degradation thus thrust on his sixty years, and in the course of his acting directed several sharp allusions against the dictator. Caesar awarded the victory to Syrus, but restored Laberius to his equestrian rank, which he had forfeited by appearing as a mimns. La berius died at Puteoli in January 43 B.C. He was the chief of those who introduced the mimus into Latin literature towards the close of the republican period. He seems to have been a man of learning and culture, but his pieces did not escape the coarseness inherent to the class of literature to which they belonged; and Aulus Genius (xvi. 7, 1) accuses him of extravagance in the coining of new words. The titles of forty-four of his mini have been preserved ; and what fragments remain have been collected by Ribbeck in his Conticornm Latinorum Religuiee, 1855, 2d ed. 1873.